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Archive for July, 2008

Google Censorship is a Flagrant Violation of Our Freedom of Speech!

Freedom of speech is being able to speak freely without censorship. The United States Constitution protects opinions under inalienable 1st Amendment free speech rights.

The right to freedom of speech is also guaranteed under international law through numerous human-rights instruments, notably under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

How much longer is Google allowed to continue its censorship in violation of the United States Constitution and the international law?

“A Conspiracy Against the Public”

Haunted by Big, Bad Google

The Moderators at the Public Information Blogs listed below condemn Google Inc in the strongest possible terms for content censorship. Google search engines permanently or periodically exclude specific posts, contents or information from the blogs thereby abridging the freedom of speech, and denying the public their right to know!

Google Inc poses a clear and present danger to freedom of speech. To minimize this threat, we urge those of the lawmakers who still believe in the Constitution to break up Google into smaller, less harmful units.

“A Conspiracy Against the Public”: For political reasons, Google has blocked this post.

Alaska Sen. Stevens Bites the Dust

Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) poses in an undated handout photo.

Republican U.S. Sen. [for 40 years] Ted Stevens was charged with concealing gifts worth more than $250,000, including home renovations “baksheesh” that he received from an oil company, the Justice Department said.

Stevens was charged in a federal grand jury indictment with seven counts of making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms from 2001 to 2006.

“I am innocent of these charges and intend to prove that,” Stevens said. “I have never knowingly submitted a false disclosure form required by law as a U.S. senator.” [Yeah, right!]

“Stevens … knowingly and intentionally sought to conceal and cover up his receipt of things of value by filing financial disclosure forms that contained false statements and omissions concerning Stevens’ receipt of these things of value,” the 28-page indictment said.

“The Alaskan investigation covered suspected influence peddling by officials at VECO, then the state’s largest oil-services company and a major patron of Alaska Republicans.” Reuters reported.

“Stevens was the 10th person to be charged. Last summer, agents from the FBI and Internal Revenue Service searched his home in the ski resort of Girdwood, south of Anchorage.”

“To be silent when major crimes are being committed against all humanity makes us accomplices”

Four peace activists who attempted to make a “citizens arrest” of Karl Rove, were arrested by Des Moines police in Iowa.

A dozen protesters had gathered outside a country club where Rove spoke at a private Republican party fundraiser. As the four were put into a police van, the demonstrators shouted: “It should be Karl Rove in that van. War Criminal!”

Chet Guinn, a retired Methodist Minister, was among those arrested. He told reporters: “To be silent when major crimes are being committed against all humanity makes us accomplices,” as he was led away. (Source)

An official portrait of Karl Rove

Karl Rove (born December 25, 1950) was Deputy Chief of Staff to President [sic] George W. Bush until his resignation on 31 August 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives. Since leaving the White House, Rove has worked as a political analyst and contributor for Fox News, Newsweek, and the Wall Street Journal.

Investigation by the Office of Special Counsel

On April 24, 2007, it was revealed that Rove is being investigated by the Office of Special Counsel for his involvement in the email scandal, the firing of US attorneys, and for “improper political influence over government decision-making.” In response to this investigation and other pending complaints, 2004 Democratic candidate for U.S. Vice President and former 2008 presidential hopeful John Edwards initiated a petition drive calling for Bush to fire Rove. After Rove announced his resignation, Edwards’ reply was “good riddance”. (Source and more information on this character: Wikipedia.)

The Right to Live Free of Toxic Pollution Must Be Made A Fundamental Human Right!

U.S. state wages fight against toxic chemicals

By Mercedes Grandin
Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:14am EDT

AUGUSTA, Maine (Reuters) – Hannah Pingree was so alarmed when she learned she had dangerously high levels of mercury, arsenic and other toxic chemicals in her body that she took her case to the Maine state legislature and challenged chemical makers.

As the majority leader of Maine’s House of Representatives, she sponsored legislation that gave the state the authority to broadly identify and investigate “chemicals of high concern” in consumer products, particularly those that may reach children.

The bill, signed into law in April, makes Maine the first U.S. state with such authority and could serve as a model for other U.S. states trying to fill a regulatory void left by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Just five chemicals out of 82,000 known to be hazardous to human health, for instance, have been banned by the EPA since 1976, the most recent being asbestos in 1989.

Maine’s law coincides with mounting concerns in the United States over chemicals found in everyday products, from cars to clothes, and follows similar European Union laws.

The EU in 1999 banned phthalates — chemicals used to make plastic more flexible — and last year implemented a law known as REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals) that requires businesses to prove substances in everyday products are safe and submit data about them.

Maine’s bill echoes the EU approach. It requires makers of toxic chemicals to notify state authorities of the quantity and purpose of the chemicals and work to develop safer alternatives.

Experts are watching to see if Maine’s law will lead to tougher measures nationwide, while an organization representing chemical manufacturers expressed concern that layers of new state-by-state regulations could hurt the industry.

Under the law, Maine will test chemicals and issue a “certificate of non-compliance” to manufacturers stating their chemicals do not meet state laws. The state can notify retailers the product contains toxic chemicals and legislation can be approved to ban its sale.

Pingree, 31, was one of 13 people tested in a study sponsored by an environmental group. All 13 had potentially toxic chemicals in their bodies.

“I just got married last summer and am interested in having kids in the next few years, and those chemicals could have a dangerous impact on me and my ability to bear children,” she said.

Although it’s unclear how the chemicals entered the bodies of the people tested, mercury, arsenic and phthalates are common in many consumer products.

“Maine is sending a clear message to the federal government that where they have failed, states will act,” said Pingree, a Democrat.

CHEMICALS FOUND IN BIRDS

Environmentalists in Maine say there is growing evidence that harmful toxic chemicals are working their way into the state’s ecosystem. A study, conducted by biologist Wing Goodale at the BioDiversity Research Institute in Gorham, Maine, revealed the presence of more than 100 man-made chemicals in 23 species of bird eggs from across the state.

Goodale’s research provided further ammunition for supporters of the Maine legislation, revealing that birds were ingesting toxic chemicals through their food chain and passing them on to their eggs.

Although some chemicals banned in the 1960s and 1970s were shown to have decreased in birds, new substances are taking their place — from flame-retardants to water repellents, pesticides and mercury, the study said.

Goodale said the chemicals could damage neurological, reproductive and immune systems of birds, harm their livers and affect their hormone functions.

Both the human and bird studies showed elevated levels of chemicals such as the plastic softener phthalates that are used in cosmetics, lubricants, and wood finishers, and bisphenol A, found in some plastic packaging, including baby bottles.

Flame retardants known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, turned up in humans as well as birds, the Maine studies showed. PBDE’s are used to make televisions, carpeting, furniture and mattresses.

The studies also turned up a family of perfluorochemicals known as PFC’s used in making upholstery resistant to stains.

A U.S. government study released in April showed that bisphenol A may be tied to early puberty as well as prostate and breast cancer. Based on draft findings by the National Toxicology Program, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, senior congressional Democrats asked the Food and Drug Administration to reconsider its view that bisphenol A is safe in products for use by infants and children.

Critics say Maine’s law could hurt manufacturers.

“It’s a high price for Maine to bear to attempt to replicate federal agencies who are better equipped to deal with these issues,” said Roger Bernstein, managing director of state and government affairs at the American Chemistry Council, an industry body representing chemical manufacturers. “It makes more sense to have one federal system.”

Other U.S. states have also begun to act on chemicals in consumer products. Washington state signed into law on April 1 legislation that places restrictions on the manufacture of children’s products containing lead, cadmium and phthalates.

In February, the Massachusetts Senate approved a bill to identify dangerous chemicals in household goods, but the legislation has yet to be passed into law.

In 2007, Washington became the first state to ban toxic flame retardants, and California banned toys containing phthalates. Lawmakers in Maryland, Nebraska and Hawaii have been considering bills similar to Maine’s legislation. (Editing by Jason Szep and Philip Barbara) – Copyright the author(s), or the news agency.

When you know you are being shafted!

TV for the Dogs
by Ralph Nader
July 22, 2008

CBS’s new reality show is called “Greatest American Dog,” with pet expert-zoologist Jarod Miller as the host. Twelve “dog-and-human teams are vying for the grand prize of $250,000. These teams are in intense training “by running, jumping, fetching and just looking adorable,” reports the Washington Post.

The show’s executive producer, R.J. Cutler requires the teams to all live together during the weekly competition at a “canine academy” where they will be carefully observed acting and interacting.

There is 5 year old Andrew, a Maltese, whose owner Laurie is a dog day-care owner in Stafford, Virginia. Then there is 1 year old Beacon, a miniature Schnauzer owned by a Los Angeles fashion designer. Beacon will have to get along with Kenji, also a 1 year old, a giant Schnauzer owned by Elan, described as an aspiring dog-salon owner in Portland, Oregon. Other dogs include a Pomeranian, an English bulldog, a Border Collie, a Boxer and a Boston Terrier named Ezzie whose owner, Michael, is an aspiring comic in Los Angeles.

“Although the dogs are beautiful, this is not a beauty contest,” Cutler cautions, adding that “the dog-owner relationship is the central part of the show.”

Non-dog owners, especially cat-lovers, may be snickering at the fastidious details and the presumed smarts of dogs. But behind this contest are standards for judging these dogs, beyond aerial tricks and obedience commands. The Post writes that “Each episode tests a specific quality, such as loyalty, courage or intelligence, and is developed to show how humans and animals cooperate.”

Ah, would that the television networks create reality shows highlighting the courage and intelligence of humans working to improve our society at all levels.

What about “Greatest Community Organizer” or “Greatest Consumer” which would include astute non-consumption or “Greatest Taxpayer” in terms of demanding and receiving efficient government services, or “Smartest Voter.” Or, what about “Greatest Mother, Father, Mother-in-Law and Father-in-Law, Grandmother and Grandparent,” “Greatest Storyteller, Hitch-Hiker, Babysitter, Gardener, Youth-Hobby-Instructor, Temper-Tantrum-Reducer, Neighborhood Myth-Buster, Complainer, Injustice Fighter,” or just plain “Greatest Neighbor?”

“Bah,” say the reality-show promoters. These “greatest” are not low enough on the sensuality ladder. Reality shows have to evoke, greed, danger, ego, adventure, sex, manipulation and self-absorption. Raw cravings!

Some of you may remember that Hollywood had a formula for popular films. Celebrities, romances of the rich and powerful, extravaganzas or thrillers, but above all don’t show the common folk for they live in Dullsville.

But, then after World War II, different films began to come to the screens. Out of war-torn Italy came “The Bicycle Thief” and “Bitter Rice” about ordinary people negotiating the travails of life. Presto, the movie screens became wider in more ways than one and a larger panorama of life entered the cinemas.

The point about these possible reality shows is that they help recognize or reinforce standards in a fast-changing, evolving, devolving society which blurs, depreciates, and jettisons standards that form the connectedness and meaning of inter-generational life lived on small-scales in small communities or neighborhoods.

Sure, such shows would require breakthrough imaginations by their creators. Knee-jerk prejudgments would not be given the benefit of the doubt.

Whole worlds of daily life would open up for audiences accustomed to being treated as Pavlovian specimens—who were, after all, dogs.

Radovan Karadzic the Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive was arrested in Belgrade where he reportedly lived posing as a doctor of alternative medicine, officials said today.

Portrait of a genocidal psychopath: The Serbian Messiah

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic attends a Bosnian Serb parliament session in Pale in this May 1993 file photo. REUTERS/Petar Kujundzic/Files.Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

“He happily, freely walked around the city,” Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic said. “Even the people he rented a flat from were unaware of his identity.”

Karadzic and his army commander, General Ratko Mladic, were indicted for genocide at Srebrenica, where about 8,000 unarmed Bosnian Muslims were rounded up, murdered and bulldozed into mass graves in July 1995.

He is also charged with authorizing the shooting of civilians during the Sarajevo siege in which an estimated 11,000 people were killed, Reuters reported.

“The arrest of Radovan Karadzic is confirmation that every criminal will eventually face justice,” said Munira Subasic, head of a Srebrenica widow’s association.

A combination photo shows Bosnian Serb wartime leader and indicted war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic (L) in a recent photo released to media July 22, 2008 and (R) in the eastern Bosnian town of Bijeljina October 23,1995. REUTERS/Staff. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

However, Karadzic is still regarded as a national hero by Serbian nationalists following the collapse of Yugoslavia.

A pro-Karadzic demonstrator throws a stone sculpture at Serbian riot police in Belgrade July 22, 2008. War crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic was arrested on Monday near Belgrade posing as a doctor of alternative medicine, sporting long hair, a beard and glasses to hide his face, officials said on Tuesday. REUTERS/Marko Djurica. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

“This is payback to the EU for bringing this new government to power,” said Aleksandar Vucic a member of the nationalist Radicals, which is one of Serbia’s strongest parties. “Karadzic is a Serbian hero. There will be a strong backlash.”

Bosnian Serbs hold up pictures of Radovan Karadzic in his wartime stronghold of Pale, near the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo July 26, 2008. Karadzic, who had been indicted for genocide during the Bosnia wars, was captured in Belgrade earlier this week after 11 years in hiding. REUTERS/Danilo Krstanovic. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

Time for justice to be seen to be done … Time the following too were indicted and prosecuted for genocide and crimes against humanity

George Bush, “Dick” Cheney, Colon Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Madeleine Albright … and everyone else responsible for War on Iraq, Tony Blair, his former Cabinet and all other war-makers in the UK, the former Australian PM, John Howard, and his sidekick, Alexander Goose Downer, and all other warmakers in Australia …

Could CPC’s criminal insanity be due to mercurialism fromcoal fires?

Chinese police arrest quake critic on secrets charges!

Huang Qi, 45, a Chinese Political activist who runs Tianwang Human Rights Center was arrested for “possession of state secrets” in quake-hit Sichuan province on June 10. Yesterday, police informed his mother of his formal arrest on secrets charges.

Although little information is known about his arrest, it is believed that his offer help to parents of children killed in the Massive May 12 earthquake may have led to his detention.

“The police didn’t say why, but we think it was because of when he went to help in the quake area with food and money and met many parents who’d lost children,” said his wife, Zeng Li.

Activist Huang Qi is among dozens of writers and lawyers detained during a pre-Olympics crackdown on dissent. Among off-limits topics: complaints from grieving parents that schools that collapsed in the May quake, killing thousands of children, were poorly built, above. (Undated Family Photo). Caption: Washigton Post.

Huang’s concerns about shoddy building and non-existent safety checks, as well as his contacts with foreign journalists may have angered the officials, she said.

Military and police personnel guard the entrance to the Juyuan Middle School where about 280 children died in last month’s earthquake, in Juyuan town near Dujiangyan city in Sichuan province June 12, 2008. Grieving and angry parents on Thursday marked one month since China’s devastating earthquake toppled schools, demanding an explanation and apologising to their loved ones buried under the rubble. Parents of children who died at the Juyuan Middle School said that their planned memorial service at the site was being blocked by police who went from door to door warning them to stay away. The sign reads: “Restricted area. No entry.” REUTERS/David Gray (CHINA). Image may be subject to copyright. See RTSF Fair Use Notice!

Huang has been denied a lawyer and visitations rights, said Zeng.

“Huang has been arrested solely for peaceful expression of opinion,” said the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group.

Chinese authorities have attempted to silence protests and collective mourning by the bereaved parents who tragically lost their loved ones when shoddy school buildings collapsed like cardboard boxes in the Sichuan quake.

(L-R) Chen Hupei, Zhang Xiaojun and Qiu Yiping cry as they hold pictures of their children at a road intersection, 14 km (9 miles) away from the earthquake-hit area of Hanwang, Sichuan province, May 23, 2008. Students died when the quake struck on May 12, 2008, causing the buildings in Wufu Primary to collapse on students who were attending school. REUTERS/Nicky Loh (CHINA). Image may be subject to copyright. See RTSF Fair Use Notice!

Use Videoconferencing!

Following our organization’s strong condemnation of the United Nations and its Secretary General for their “addiction” to the “carbon habit,” getting endless fixes through flying tens of millions of miles each year, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has now taken the lead on condemning the business world’s unbridled flying habits.

Tutu condemned businesspeople who contribute to global warming by taking flights rather than using video conferencing, thereby “condemning millions of the world’s poorest people to death.”

He wants developed countries that have caused global warming to take the lead slashing emissions of climate changing greenhouse gases.

“It is the countries which are the least responsible for causing climate change that are paying the heaviest price,” he said in a video message to a meeting of the World Development Movement lobby group Thursday.

“Do not fly in the face of the poor by allowing the emissions produced by endless and unnecessary business flights to keep growing.” He said, adding that scientists predicted as many as 185 million Africans would die this century because of climate change.

Tutu, a Nobel Peace laureate who campaigns tirelessly for global justice and equality, said: “Climate change is for real. As I speak, famine is increasing, flooding is increasing, as is disease and insecurity globally because of water scarcity,” he said.

“As an African I urgently call on ordinary people in rich countries to act as global citizens, not as isolated consumers. We must listen to our consciences, and not to governments who speak only about economic markets.

“These markets will cease to exist if climate change is allowed to develop to climate chaos,” he added.

“In South Africa we confirmed that if we act on the side of justice we have the power to turn tides,” Tutu said.

“I urge you … to work together with campaigners in the global South and call for strong climate change laws in your own countries in the North, as well as internationally.” (Source: Reuters).

Kill Baby, Kill!

The Climax of Human Civilization

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An F-22 Raptor aircraft flies during an air display on the first day of the Farnborough International Airshow in England July 14, 2008. REUTERS/Toby Melville. Image may be subject to copyright! See RTSF Fair Use Notice!

How McCain the “war criminal” turned Psywar Stooge Against American Servicemen

From Glory Boy to PW Songbird

John McCain: War Hero or North Vietnam’s Go-To Collaborator?

By DOUGLAS VALENTINE

If you have no idea what war is about, thank your gods. It is not what you see in Mel Gibson movies, nor is it hidden within the Big Lie Big Brother tells you about Pat Tillman’s heroic “Army of One” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When my father was in New Guinea with the 32nd Division in 1942, his fellow American soldiers would point their long Springfield rifles skywards and shoot at American pilots flying overhead.

“Glory Boys,” the long-suffering ground troops called them. …

McNasty

In the fall of 1967, Navy pilot John McCain was routinely bombing Hanoi from an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. On October 26, he was trying to level a power plant in a heavily populated area when a surface-to-air missile knocked a wing off his jet. Banged-up John McCain and what was left of plane splashed into Truc Bach Lake.

A compassionate Vietnamese civilian left his air raid shelter and swam out to McCain. McCain’s arm and leg were fractured and he was tangled up in his parachute underwater. He was drowning. The Vietnamese man saved McCain’s sorry ass, and yet McCain has nothing but hatred for “the gooks” who allegedly tortured him. As he told reporters on his campaign bus (The Straight Talk Express) in 2000, “I will hate them as long as I live.”

Americans have to hate people, and dehumanize them as “gooks” or “rag-heads” in order to drop bombs on them. Stirring up such hatred is the forte of the US government, as witnessed by its Israeli-driven PR campaign against Arabs and Moslems. That’s why Bush and his media minions tied “brutal dictator” Saddam Hussein to 9/11 – so Americans would hate Iraqis enough to kill and abuse them in a thousand ways, everyday, for five years. Or, according to McCain, for 100 years if necessary.

The flip side to the equation is that people generally hate those who drop bombs on them. When the Germans dropped bombs on London, the Allies called it Terror Bombing. The French resistance especially hated the Germans, especially after the Gestapo set up shop in occupied France in 1940. …

The Vietnamese had good reason to hate McCain. On his previous 22 missions, he had dropped God knows how many bombs killing God knows how many innocent civilians. “I am a war criminal,” he confessed on “60 Minutes” in 1997. “I bombed innocent women and children.”

If he is sincere when he says that, why isn’t he being tried for war crimes by the U.S. Government?

In any event, the man who rescued McCain tried to ward off an angry mob, which stomped on McCain for a while until the local cops turned him over to the military. McCain was in pain, but suffering no mortal wounds. He was, however, in enough pain to break down and start collaborating with the Vietnamese after three days in a hospital receiving treatment from qualified doctors – something no other POW ever enjoyed.

War is one thing, collaborating with the enemy is another; it is a legitimate campaign issue that strikes at the heart of McCain’s character…or lack thereof. …

The question is: “What kind of collaborator was John McCain, the admitted war criminal who will hate his alleged torturers for the rest of his life?”

Put another way, how psychologically twisted is McCain? And what actually happened to him in his POW camp that twisted him? Was it abuse, as he claims, or was it the fact that he collaborated and has to cover up?

Covering-up can take a lot of energy. The truth is lurking in his subconscious, waiting to explode. A number of US officials, including Andrew Card, have commented on McCain’s inexplicable angry outbursts.

In a July 5 2006 NewsMax.com article, former Senator Bob Smith (R-NH), was quoted as having said about McCain: “I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues…. He would disagree about something and then explode.” Smith called it “irrational behavior. We’ve all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I’ve never seen anyone act like that.” …

The Admiral’s Bad Boy

In the forced-labor camp where my father was tortured by the Japanese, the POWs killed anyone who collaborated. Indeed, the ranking POW in my father’s camp, an English Major, made a deal with the Japanese guaranteeing that no one would attempt to escape. When four prisoners escaped, the Major reported it. The Japanese sent out a search party, which found the POWs and brought them back to camp, where they were beheaded on Christmas morning 1943. …

McCain, in his carefully prepared statements, claims he was tortured while in solitary confinement, and that is why he signed a confession saying, “I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate. I almost died and the Vietnamese people saved my life, thanks to the doctors.”

However, on March 25, 1999, two of his fellow POWs, Ted Guy and Gordon “Swede” Larson told the Phoenix New Times that, while they could not guarantee that McCain was not physically harmed, they doubted it.

As Larson said, “My only contention with the McCain deal is that while he was at The Plantation, to the best of my knowledge and Ted’s knowledge, he was not physically abused in any way. No one was in that camp. It was the camp that people were released from.”

Guy and Larson’s claims are given credence by McCain’s vehement opposition to releasing the government’s debriefings of Vietnam War POWs. McCain gave Michael Isikoff a peek at his debriefs, and Isikoff declared there was “nothing incriminating” in them, apart from the redactions.

McCain had a unique POW experience. Initially, he was taken to the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison camp, where he was interrogated. By McCain’s own account, after three or four days, he cracked. He promised his Vietnamese captors, “I’ll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital.”

His Vietnamese capturers soon realized their POW, John Sidney McCain III, came from a well-bred line of American military elites. McCain’s father, John Jr., and grandfather, John Sr., were both full Admirals. A destroyer, the USS John S. McCain, is named after both of them.

While his son was held captive in Hanoi, John McCain Jr., from 1968 to 1972, was the Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Pacific Command; Admiral McCain was in charge of all US forces in the Pacific including those fighting in Vietnam.

One can only wonder when the concierge at the Hanoi Hilton started taking calls from Admiral McCain. Rather quickly, one surmises, for the Vietnamese soon took John Boy McCain to a hospital reserved for Vietnamese officers. Unlike his fellow POWs, he received care from a Soviet doctor.

“This poor stooge has propaganda value,” the Vietnamese realized. The Admiral’s bad boy was used to special treatment and his captors knew that. They were working him.

For his part, McCain acknowledges that the Vietnamese rushed him to a hospital, but denies he was given any “special medical treatment.”

However….two weeks into his stay at the Vietnamese hospital, the Hanoi press began quoting him. It was not “name rank and serial number, or kill me,” as specified by the military code of conduct. McCain divulged specific military information: he gave the name of the aircraft carrier on which he was based, the number of US pilots that had been lost, the number of aircraft in his flight formation, as well as information about the location of rescue ships. …

On the other hand, according to one source, McCain’s collaboration may have had very real consequences. Retired Army Colonel Earl Hopper, a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, contends that the information that McCain divulged classified information North Vietnam used to hone their air defense system. …

According to the elder Hopper, McCain told his North Vietnamese captors, “highly classified information, the most important of which was the package routes, which were routes used to bomb North Vietnam. He gave in detail the altitude they were flying, the direction, if they made a turn… he gave them what primary targets the United States was interested in.” Hopper contends that the information McCain provided allowed the North Vietnamese to adjust their air-defenses. As result, Hopper claims, the US lost sixty percent more aircraft and in 1968, “called off the bombing of North Vietnam, because of the information McCain had given to them.”

The Psywar Stooge

McCain was held for five and half years. Collaborating during the first two weeks might have been pragmatic, but he soon became North Vietnam’s go-to collaborator for the next three years. Given the quality of the military information he allegedly shared, his situation isn’t as innocuous as the pragmatic French barber who cuts the hair of the German occupier. McCain was repaying his captors for their kindness and mercy.

This is the lesson of McCain’s experience as a POW: a true politician, a hollow man, his only allegiance is to power. The Vietnamese, like McCain’s campaign contributors today, protected and promoted him and in return, he danced to their tune.

Not content with divulging military information, McCain provided his voice in radio broadcasts used by the North Vietnamese to demoralize American soldiers.

Vietnamese radio propagandists made good use out of McCain. On June 4, 1969, a U.S. wire service headlined a story entitled “PW Songbird Is Pilot Son of Admiral.”

The story reported that McCain collaborated in psywar offensives aimed at American servicemen. “The broadcast was beamed to American servicemen in South Vietnam as a part of a propaganda series attempting to counter charges by U.S. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird that American prisoners are being mistreated in North Vietnam.”

On one occasion, General Vo Nguyen Giap, the top Vietnamese commander and a nationalist celebrity of the time, personally interviewed McCain. His compliance during this command performance was a moment of affirmation for the Vietnamese. His Vietnamese handlers thereafter used him regularly as prop at meetings with foreign delegations.

In the custody of enemy psywar specialists, McCain became what he is today: a professional psywar stooge.

It is impossible to prove exactly what happened to McCain short of traveling to Vietnam and tracking down his captors, and picking up thee trail where it begins. According to The Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain, McCain says he only collaborated when he brutally tortured by his Vietnamese captors and a wicked Cuban he referred to as Fidel.

He says his confession led him to a suicide attempt.

“In the anguished days right after my confession,” McCain said in his autobiography Faith of My Fathers, “I had dreaded just such a discovery by my father.”

But as McCain discovered, dear old dad did know. …

But wait! McCain did not commit suicide. In fact, he’s alive, running for President on the “war hero” ticket, and promoting more war everywhere. The new McCain feels no distress at having been a collaborator or a war criminal – if he ever did.

According to Fernando Barral, a Cuban psychologist who questioned McCain in January 1970, “McCain was “boastful” during their interview and “without remorse” for any civilian deaths that occurred “when he bombed Hanoi.” McCain has a similar recollection, writing in his [autobiography] that he responded, “No, I do not” when Barral asked if he felt remorse.” …

“Barral said McCain boasted that he was the best pilot in the Navy and that he wanted to be an astronaut.” The Cuban psychologist concluded that McCain was [a] ‘psychopath.’” …

Psychopath McCain emerges, now, as a contemptible elitist, stewing in the crucible of his class conscience, the ultimate right wing psywar stooge.

McJekyll and McHyde

There are no public records from other POWs to confirm McCain’s self-aggrandizing claims, but his detractors, like fellow POWs Ted Guy and Gordon “Swede” Larson, and Colonel Hopper, have yet to be discredited or silenced by McCain’s PR team.

Hopper, Guy and Larson are part of a larger movement concerned with the fate of the 2,000 American veterans still missing in Vietnam. They’ve been pressing McCain to own up to his POW experience, drop the “war hero” posturing, and do more to provide a full accounting of the POWs and MIAs who were not as fortunate, privileged, or willing to collaborate as the would-be president. …

The American media accepts McCain’s “war hero” myth as gospel and, in so doing, bolsters the “straight talk” image so essential to his success in politics. In a recent TV interview with John Kerry, victim of the Swift Boat Heroes for Truth Movement in the last election, another “fortunate son,” Chris Wallace, actually took umbrage when Kerry criticized McCain. Son of media admiral Mike Wallace, Chris made Kerry admit that McCain was a hero. When it comes to psywar, the Vietnamese have nothing on the good old USA.

McCain learned his lesson well from the Vietnamese propagandists who used him for their psywar projects. But it’s not the collaboration that makes John McCain unfit for office; it’s the fact that he has managed to rewrite his collaboration into political capital. “He’s a war hero, respect him, or die.”

As a pedigree, the McCain family’s stature rests on the status and prestige of its achievements in the military: rank, medals, and most importantly to John McCain’s presidential campaign, the image of warrior masculinity: the straight talking maverick of the Republican Party, the 21st century rendering of Teddy Roosevelt.

Not exactly. In his current presidential campaign, he’s cozying up to the hate-mongering Christian right he once criticized. He’s reversed positions on so many issues that his Democratic rivals have assembled his contrasting statements into “The Great McCain Versus McCain Debates.

Underlying the Jekyll-Hyde reversals is McCain’s hidden past of collaboration. Somewhere in the unplumbed human part of John Sidney McCain III, he knows his POW experience contradicts the war hero image he projects. This essential dishonesty, this lie of the soul, is a sign of a larger lack of character – like the major in my father’s POW camp, but without the come-uppance.

McCain is not some principled leader, not a maverick cowboy fighting the powerful. He’s a sycophant. He believes in nothing but power and will do anything to attain it. He explodes in anger when challenged because, when a criticism hits to close to home, it goes to straight his deep-seeded shame.

McCain’s handlers have turned his unspeakable reality into a myth worthy of Teddy Roosevelt. No wonder the Glory Boy has stuck around Washington so long.

Accelerated land degradation threatens food security of a quarter of the world’s population: FAO

“An estimated 1.5 billion people, or a quarter of the world’s population, depend directly on land that is being degraded,” FAO said.

Land degradation affects

More than 20 percent of all cultivated areas.

About 30 percent of forests.

At least 10 percent of grasslands.

Land erosion leads to

Desertification

Reduced productivity

Mass migration

Food insecurity

Irreversible damage to natural resources

Collapse of ecosystems

Loss of biodiversity

Increase in emission of GHG

“The loss of biomass and soil organic matter releases carbon into the atmosphere and affects the quality of soil and its ability to hold water and nutrients,” said director of FAO’s Land and Water Division.

Severe soil erosion in a wheat field near Washington State University, USA.

Natural Resources Conservation Service on Desertification:

Desertification is land degradation occurring in the arid, semiarid and dry subhumid areas of the world. These susceptible drylands cover 40 percent of the earth’s surface and puts at risk more than 1 billion people who are dependent on these lands for survival.

Landsat image of sand dunes advancing on Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania.

The Major Causes:

Land clearing and deforestation

Agricultural mining of soil nutrients

Urban conversion

Irrigation

Pollution

The Major Stresses:

accelerated erosion by wind and water

removal of nutrients

acidity increase

salination

alkalinization

destruction of soil structure

loss of organic matter

Severe land degradation decreases the wealth and economic development of nations and is directly liked to poverty. When the land resource base becomes less productive, food security is compromised and competition for dwindling resources increases, the seeds of potential conflict are sown.

Midwest Floodwaters Falling, Costs Rising

ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Levees on the cresting Mississippi River held Sunday as the worst US Midwest flooding in 15 years began to ebb, but multibillion-dollar crop losses may boost world food prices for years.

Grain from a silo floats in floodwaters after the Meyer levee broke near Canton, Missouri, June 19, 2008. REUTERS/Frank Polich. Image may be subject to copyright. See RTSF Fair Use Notice!

Water levels on the river receded for the second straight day as mostly clear weather gave saturated areas a chance to start draining. Forecasts for similar dry weather in coming days gave further encouragement.

The swollen river was expected to crest Monday in St. Louis at 38.9 feet, 11 feet below the record set in 1993 and a level considered “manageable,” said US Army Corps of Engineers St. Louis District spokesman Alan Dooley.

“The crest in the areas up the Mississippi River in the district has passed,” Dooley said. “The water is still up very high and it is up against levees.”

There were no fresh levee breaks reported Sunday. At least three dozen levees, berms and other flood barriers have been overtopped along the Mississippi in the last two weeks as the runoff from torrential rains this month pushed south along the main US inland waterway.

Several flood warnings remained in effect for communities in Missouri and Illinois, but officials said they expected the worst was over, with the focus now shifting to clean-up.

“We’re just mentally and physically exhausted,” said Winfield, Missouri, resident Carol Broseman, who fled her home for a shelter Saturday after flood waters engulfed her neighborhood. “I’ve cried all I can cry.”

The National Weather Service on Sunday forecast windy but mostly dry weather in the western and central Midwest states for the next several days, which will help waters recede further. Many Iowa rivers, which saw record flooding two weeks ago, were back near or below flood stage Sunday.

The Corps of Engineers at Rock Island, Illinois, reopened two locks on the Mississippi River but said four in the district remained closed with water still 3-5 feet above lock walls.

At one point 388 miles of the Mississippi River were closed to commercial traffic, from Clinton, Iowa, to the Jefferson Barracks Bridge, just south of St. Louis. The blockages have cost barge companies and other shippers millions of dollars.

COSTS, RELIEF REQUESTS RISING

The Midwest storms and torrential rains have killed at least 24 people since late May. More than 38,000 people have been driven from their homes, mostly in Iowa where 83 of 99 counties have been declared disaster areas.

Fears that as many as 5 million acres of corn and soybeans have been lost to flooding in the world’s largest grain and food exporter pushed corn and livestock prices to record highs in the last week.

The ripple inflation effect on global food prices as US prices soar has alarmed everyone from central bankers to food aid groups. Fears that livestock herds will be culled because of soaring corn feed prices may push meat prices up for years.

Flood aid and relief issues also poured into the political arena.

Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama said Saturday that Midwest levee breaks and flood damage were reasons to back his US$60 billion spending proposal to modernize US roads, bridges and waterways. Much of that would be financed by downsizing US commitments in Iraq, he said.

Iowa Gov. Chet Culver has estimated 45,000 square miles of his state had been hit by tornadoes or flooding, including 340 towns, with extensive damage to road and rail lines at a cost of “tens of billions of dollars.”

Chemicals from farm fields and other toxic substances left behind as waters recede have created a potential health threat. Damaged municipal sewage systems in places like Cedar Rapids, Iowa, were releasing raw sewage into rivers. But drinking water supplies remain unpolluted in most areas, officials said.

In Cedar Rapids, where officials have said 4,000 homes were damaged by this month’s flooding, government buyout plans estimated at US$80 million or more were under discussion.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has 43 disaster recovery centers open across the flooded areas of Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

In Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin, 56,096 registrations for assistance have been received from disaster victims and more than US$115 million approved for housing assistance and other disaster-related needs. More than 5,600 households have filed flood insurance claims. (Writing by Peter Bohan; editing by Vicki Allen)